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“the consideration whereof excites me...earnestly to solicit and solemnly to warn you, to exert your power and influence, that right and justice may be done in this important case.”

[SLAVERY]. The Providence Gazette and Country Journal, December 22, 1792. Providence, RI: John Carter. 4 pp., 10 x 16½ in.

Inventory #27922       Price: $1,250

Quaker abolitionist Warner Mifflin sent a petition to Congress, urging it to abolish slavery throughout the United States. On November 26, 1792, Congressman Fisher Ames of Massachusetts presented Mifflin’s petition “on the subject of negro slavery, which was read and ordered to lie on the table.” Two days later, John Steele of North Carolina moved that the clerk return the petition to Mifflin and expunge the entry of it from the journal. Steele characterized Mifflin as “a fanatic, who, not content with keeping his own conscience, undertook to be the keeper of the consciences of other men, and, in a manner which he deemed not very decent, had obtruded his opinion into the house.” Steele concluded, “Gentlemen in the northern states do not realize the mischievous consequences which have been occasioned to certain persons in relation to that property; and, he said, if a stop was not put to these proceedings, the southern states would, ere long, be compelled to apply to the general government for their interference.”[1]

William Loughton Smith of South Carolina “expressed his disapprobation of the memorial in very pointed terms; he reprobated the measures pursued by persons of a fanatical disposition, in relation to negro slavery, as tending to subvert the peace of the country, and destroy the union.” He thought it was “high time for the house to express its opinion in such a manner, as to put a stop to all such applications in future.” The House then voted to return the petition.[2]

Excerpts
“Observing in the journals of Congress, given us in the last Gazette, mention is made of the reading and returning a memorial subscribed by Warner Mifflin:—As the design of publishing those journals is, I presume, to give their constituents the means of forming an opinion of the doings of their representatives, I therefore request the enclosed copy of said memorial may have a place in the next Gazette, as without it no safe opinion can be formed upon that article in the journals.... A Friend to Truth and Justice.” (p2/c1)

“To the President, Senate, and House of Representatives of the United States....

“Having for a long time felt my mind impressed with a religious engagement on your account, and a belief that if measures are not taken to redress the wrongs and alleviate the sufferings and oppressions of the African race in these States, the Almighty will manifest his displeasure in a more conspicuous manner than has yet appeared; the consideration whereof excites me, in his fear, earnestly to solicit and solemnly to warn you, to exert your power and influence, that right and justice may be done in this important case.” (p2/c1)

“Do not you, with me, believe that there is a God of justice, who will finally recompence unto all men according to the fruit of their doings...?” (p2/c1-2)

Historical Background
As a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), Mifflin opposed slavery and aided African Americans in escaping. He also became a pioneer in the idea that ex-slaves should receive reparations or “restitution” in the form of cash payments, land, or sharecropping arrangements. He also advocated boycotts of any products produced by slave labor.

Mifflin began freeing his twenty-two slaves in 1774 and convinced his father to free his one hundred slaves in 1775. Mifflin even repurchased five slaves that he had sold so that he could free them. He made labor contracts with his former slaves to keep the workforce intact and provided schooling for their children. He traveled extensively to encourage fellow Quakers to liberate their slaves and even encouraged non-Quakers like Founding Father John Dickinson (1732-1808) to do so.

In 1788, Mifflin was a founder of Delaware’s first abolition society. Two years later, he was a member of a committee that the Pennsylvania Abolition Society sent to Congress with an abolition petition. The petition caused a prolonged and bitter debate. In November 1792, he sent this personal appeal to President George Washington and Congress in the form of a memorial on slavery. Congress returned the memorial to Mifflin, a foreshadowing of the “gag rule” adopted by Congress in 1836.

On December 12, 1792, Mifflin wrote to Washington, “And wherein I have no doubt this Country will find some day we are right let southern blasts storm as they may and insinuate what they will respecting the Affricans, I remain of the very same sentiment made known to thee hereto-fore.” He added, “I can say I wish with all my heart that thou wert not a slave holder this does hurt the feelings of some of thy best friends....”[3]

In January 1793, Quaker printer Daniel Lawrence of Philadelphia published Mifflin’s response to Congress as A Serious Expostulation with the Members of the House of Representatives of the United States in pamphlet form. Lawrence’s second edition of the pamphlet included the full text of Mifflin’s memorial, taken from this issue of the Providence Gazette.[4] Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had copies of the pamphlet in their libraries.

In his pamphlet response to Congress, Mifflin bristled at the charge of “fanaticism” and insisted that his memorial had no more such content “than what may be found in divers publications of Congress on the same subject.” He then quoted from the Articles of Association of October 20, 1774; the Address to the Inhabitants of Canada of May 29, 1775; the Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms of July 6, 1775; the Address to Ireland of July 28, 1775; the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776; and a pamphlet entitled “Observations on the American Revolution,” published by order of Congress in 1779. The last publication included the declaration, “The great principle (of government) is and ever will remain in force, that men are by nature free: as accountable to him that made them, they must be so; and so long as we have any idea of Divine Justice, we must associate that of human freedom.”[5]

Mifflin continued, “I cannot use the carnal sword in my country’s defence, I believe that weapon for a Christian to be unlawful, yet I trust I shall with the weapons that are to me lawful in the cause of my country, manifest as much firmness and stability....” He especially focused on the attitude of Congress toward the African slave trade: “If your disapprobation of this trade as a body was publicly known to be sincere, I believe it would have a good effect; and if you are so it is my judgment the people has a right to know and expect it from you. I am persuaded, nine tenths of the citizens of the United States reprobate the African Trade, and consider every slave imported an injury to the public; and that they repose confidence in your wisdom as guardians of the nation, to prevent its injury; and that herein you betray the trust reposed in you...even to do that which of right ought to be done by the nation....”[6]

Additional Content
This issue also includes part of Joseph Reed’s commencement oration at Princeton (p1/c1-3); proceedings of the French National Convention from late September (p1/c3-p2/c1); proceedings of Congress (p2/c2-p3/c1); news from Paris, London, Philadelphia, Albany, Boston, and Providence, including news that Maryland and Delaware had cast their electoral votes unanimously for George Washington and John Adams and Pennsylvania was also unanimous for Washington and cast all but one for Adams (p3/c1-2); and a variety of notices and advertisements, including one advertising the just-published Isaac Bickerstaff’s New-England Almanack for 1793 (p4/c3).

Warner Mifflin (1745-1798) was born on the Eastern Shore of Virginia into a slave-holding family that had descended from Quaker immigrants to New Jersey. Although his father was one of the largest slaveholders in the county, Mifflin became an abolitionist as a teenager. In 1767, he married Elizabeth Johns (ca. 1749-1786), and her family gave them a plantation in Delaware and several slaves as a dowry. Although she was a lapsed Quaker who had become an Anglican, they joined a local Quaker meeting by 1769. After her death, he remarried in 1788 to fellow Quaker Ann Emlen (1755-1815). From his two marriages, Mifflin had twelve children, but only five survived to adulthood. Mifflin not only freed his own slaves but encouraged fellow Quakers to do so as well. During the Revolutionary War, Mifflin was a leading Quaker peace activist, despite the danger of being considered a Loyalist. He refused to pay taxes to support the war, leading sheriffs to seize some of his property. After the war, he was a leading supporter of the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery itself. In 1798, he aided victims of the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia until succumbing to the fever.

The Providence Gazette (1762-1825) was a weekly newspaper established in 1762 in Providence, Rhode Island, by Sarah Updike Goddard (ca. 1701-1770), her son William Goddard (1740-1817), and her daughter Mary Katherine Goddard (1738-1816), as The Providence Gazette, and Country Journal, the first newspaper in the city. John Carter, who had apprenticed with Benjamin Franklin, was the head printer. In 1765, William Goddard moved away, and Sarah Goddard and her daughter continued publishing the newspaper until selling it in 1768 to John Carter (1745-1814). The Gazette was a strong supporter of the Revolutionary cause and the ratification of the United States Constitution. Carter also served as Providence postmaster from 1772 to 1792. In 1795, Carter shortened the title of the newspaper to The Providence Gazette, but it returned to the longer title in 1811 for several years before resuming the short title from 1820 to 1825. In 1814, he sold the newspaper and printing business to Hugh H. Brown and William H. Wilson. In 1825, it merged with the Rhode Island American.